Chronic Future was a band from Scottsdale, Arizona. The band was formed in 1995, when their average age was 14. They achieved a short period of mainstream success with the album Lines in My Face, as well as the album's hit single, "Time and Time Again". The band consisted of vocalist Mike Busse, guitarist Ben Collins, bassist Brandon Lee and drummer Barry Collins, who are all founding members.

Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, part of the Greater Phoenix Area. Named Scottsdale in 1894 after its founder Winfield Scott, a retired U.S. Army chaplain, the city was incorporated in 1951 with a population of 2,000. The 2015 population of the city was estimated to be 236,839 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The New York Times described downtown Scottsdale as "a desert version of Miami's South Beach" and as having "plenty of late night partying and a buzzing hotel scene." Its slogan is "The West's Most Western Town."

Arizona is a state in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the Western and the Mountain states. It is the sixth largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona shares the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico; its other neighboring states are Nevada and California to the west and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest.

Lines in My Face is the third commercially released album from Chronic Future. It features the hit single "Time and Time Again", and has a range of themes in the tracks involving the Golden Era of the radio, New York City, and friendships. The album put the band into the mainstream for a short period, before the band left Interscope Records in 2006 and began an independent career.

After finding mainstream success, the band then went on to operate under their own independent label, Modern Art Records, and released the Modern Art EP online under this new label. The band worked very independently after their departure from Interscope Records, rarely playing live and releasing albums independently as well as releasing online demos and purchasable songs. The band's early/mainstream style was a mixture of hip hop and punk rock, but the band progressed into a unique fusion style of hip hop, electronica, and alternative. The band's vocal style incorporated three vocalists: Mike Busse, Ben Collins and Brandon Lee.

Modern Art EP is a limited edition EP by the American alternative rock band Chronic Future. It was released on November 11, 2008 on Amazon.com and iTunes under guitarist Ben Collins' record label, Modern Art Records.

Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. It was founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Warner Music Group's Atlantic Records. At the time, it differed from most record companies by giving decision-making authority to its A&R staff and allowing artists and producers complete creative control. It had its first hit records less than a year after it was founded, and achieved profitability in 1993. Iovine served as chairman and CEO until May 2014, when he was succeeded by John Janick.

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop or rap music, is a genre of popular music developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans and Latino Americans in the Bronx borough of New York City in the 1970s. It consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.

History

Formation and early history: 1995–2000

Chronic Future began their musical career in the summer of 1995, and a year or so later, they released their first self-titled album when the band members were at an average age of 14. The album gained popular local airplay, but achieved no commercial success, and is now very rare, only available for purchase on such sites as Amazon.com or eBay. Their followup, 4 Elements, was released in 2000, and was even less successful, with only a few songs being praised. 4 Elements was released on Beyond Records, and the band toured with such bands as Face to Face.

Chronic Future is the self-titled first album of the band Chronic Future. It was released on September 9, 1996, with the members of the band having an average age of only 15. The album became an instant success locally, but never reached the mainstream.

eBay Inc. is an American multinational e-commerce corporation based in San Jose, California that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in the autumn of 1995, and became a notable success story of the dot-com bubble. eBay is a multibillion-dollar business with operations in about 30 countries, as of 2011. The company manages the eBay website, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a wide variety of goods and services worldwide. The website is free to use for buyers, but sellers are charged fees for listing items after a limited number of free listings, and again when those items are sold.

4 Elements is the second album by the American alternative rock band Chronic Future. It was released on September 22, 2000. The album received poor ratings in general, though certain songs were praised, including "Jump to Jive" and "The Majik". 4 Elements had a far more mature sound than Chronic Future, as the band members were older, though the less-mature sound of Chronic Future proved more popular.

Mainstream success: 2000–2004

From 2000 to 2004, the band signed their first major label deal with Interscope Records, and their third full-length was soon to follow in mid-2004. The band released a promotional EP called the Lines in My Face EP, featuring four songs from the album, as well as two rare songs. Soon after, the band released the album Lines in My Face, reached No.18 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.[1] The album's single "Time and Time Again" saw airplay on MTV and MTV2 and reached No.40 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts,[2] as well as being featured in the video game Burnout 3: Takedown and MVP Baseball 2004.

Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by the Billboard-Hollywood Reporter Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style, and is also known for its music charts, including the Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular songs and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows.

Burnout 3: Takedown is a racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts. It is the third instalment in the Burnout series, which is characterised by fast-paced arcade racing. A staple of the series is the use of boost, earned through risky driving, to rapidly increase a car's speed. The central mechanic introduced in Burnout 3 is Takedowns, which allow players to slam their opponents until they crash. Takedowns work in conjunction with the boost system by filling up and extending the boost meter. Aside from standard circuit races, the game features modes focused on performing Takedowns on rival vehicles and causing monetary damage at a junction occupied with traffic. Each game variant is featured in a single-player campaign mode called World Tour, which serves as the primary method for unlocking new and faster cars. The game supports both online and split-screen multiplayer.

Earlier during that year, the band recruited Ryan Breen from Back Ted N-Ted, to play second guitar on the road. He joined as a full-time member, but then quit to begin on a solo music project of his own, which later became Back Ted N-Ted. He was replaced by Mike Loy, who after the release and recording of Lines in My Face, left to embark on his own musical ventures.

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom. With roots in blues rock, psychedelic rock, and acid rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. The genre's lyrics and performance styles are sometimes associated with aggression and machismo.

The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer either leads the vocal ensemble, or sets against the ensemble as the dominant sound. In vocal group performances, notably in soul and gospel music, and early rock and roll, the lead singer takes the main vocal part, with a chorus provided by other band members as backing vocalists.

Independent work: 2006–2009

Chronic Future left Interscope Records for an unknown reason in 2006. Several CF members also collaborate with Back Ted N-Ted, although it now appears that Brandon Lee is pulling double duty as a live member of Ryan Breen's solo project Back Ted N-Ted. At around this time, Mike Busse started a solo, hip-hop oriented side project with Charlie Brand of Miniature Tigers called The Future Lords. On 1 October 2006, Ben Collins officially launching Modern Art Records in partnership with Epic Records, but have now denounced their partnership with Epic Records. Collins signed Back Ted N-Ted, as well as the Miniature Tigers, Brothers Backward, Foxglove Hunt, Gospel Claws and The Future Lords.

Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc., the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was founded predominantly as a jazz and classical music label in 1953, but later expanded its scope to include a more diverse range of genres, including pop, R&B, rock, and hip hop. Epic Records has released music by artists including Glenn Miller, Tammy Wynette, George Michael, The Yardbirds, Donovan, Shakin Stevens, Europe, Cheap Trick, Meat Loaf, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ted Nugent, Shakira, Sly & the Family Stone, The Hollies, Celine Dion, ABBA, Culture Club, Boston, Dave Clark Five, Gloria Estefan, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, and Michael Jackson. Along with Arista, Columbia and RCA Records, Epic is one of Sony Music Entertainment's four flagship record labels.

The band released a limited edition album, This and of That, in late 2006 for online purchase through their now inactive official website. The band had made a sudden change from their rap rock style to an electronica/alternative/hip-hop crossover style by changing their guitar sounds from the traditional rock sound to an electronic sound. Chronic Future had actually previously experimented with this style and uploaded demos of some of the songs from This and of That to their official website, as well as other unreleased demos. The album was limited to merely 1000 copies. The album featured Ryan Breen, the band's former rhythm guitarist, doing programming.

The band recruited DAGGRR (live guitarist for Back Ted N-Ted) in 2007 to play rhythm guitar for several shows, though he left shortly in 2008 to support both Miniature Tigers and Back Ted N-Ted's live shows. Chronic Future performed at the West Coast show of The Bamboozle in Irvine, California on April 6, 2008.

Just before the release of the Modern Art EP, the following statement on their Myspace page appeared on the 29th of October, 2008:

We stand by our new material. We are really excited about this EP and nothing is going to change how we feel when we listen back to what we just finished recording. This music is exciting to us! We have never wished to repeat ourselves...we all made a pact a long time ago that we'd rather break up the band then make music that don't inspire our brains. We've never tried to be anything we are not...If you can't accept our new direction, we understand. We still love you all. Feel free to comment away, we welcome your thoughts.

—Chronic Future

On November 11, 2008 an EP entitled Modern Art EP was released on iTunes. The album further demonstrated their crossover style, but with far more melodic music than demonstrated on This and of That. The digital EP featured re-recordings of demos previously uploaded to Chronic Future's website and Myspace page. The song "Rocket Science" was converted into techno/alternative/hip-hop from its original punk/rap style. By popular demand from the band's fans, a limited edition demo compilation, Demoitis, was released in April 2009.

Hiatus: 2009–2014

Chronic Future stopped updating their official Myspace page and no information on the band is available on their previous record label's official website. No band activity on their profile has taken place since the July 21, 2009 post about Chronic Future merchandise on their official Myspace page. However, a personal email from guitarist Ben Collins explained that the band members have all moved to New York City and that the Chronic Future project "isn't over yet". According to Ben Collins' personal Facebook page, he had left the band as of January 2010, but reunited several years later with Chronic Future in 2015.[3]

In 2012, backing vocalist and bassist Brandon Lee joined Miniature Tigers for their third record, Mia Pharaoh, as well as recording with them for their fourth album, Cruel Runnings, in 2014. In between the release of the two Miniature Tigers albums, Lee began a new project called The Mathematics, releasing an EP titled Summertime in Babylon on July 8, 2013.

Reunion: 2015

On March 12, 2015, Ben Collins tweeted that Chronic Future currently has "no plans to tour, but are having fun together (as we always have) and playing NYC this summer." The show was held at the Bowery Ballroom on July 18, 2015, with Charlie Brand of Miniature Tigers as the opening act.

About a week after the Chronic Future reunion show in New York City, Ben Collins stated on Twitter that he would like to perform another show with Chronic Future in their home city, Phoenix, Arizona, stating it to be a "good idea". The band played their final show in Phoenix, Arizona at the Rebel Lounge on December 26, 2015.[4]

The song "Apology for Non-Symmetry", was featured on the Gran Turismo 4 soundtrack.

The song "Static on the Radio" was also part of the Gretzky Hockey game for the PS2 soundtrack.

The song "Wicked Games" was featured on the CSI: Miami episode "Crime Wave", during shots of various law enforcement agencies' boats racing to intercept a suspect on the ocean. The song was also featured in Cereal Killerz (a paintball movie) for the professional paintball player Oliver Lang.

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